Chardon High School gunman chased away by hero American football coach

A teenager - from a school for pupils with academic or behavioural problems - is under arrest

A high school American football coach chased a teenage gunman off campus after a cafeteria attack which left one dead and four injured.

Hero Frank Hall confronted the killer before charging out of the canteen after him.

The 38-year-old dad of four, a study hall and cafeteria monitor, is the attack coach for the Chardon High School Hilltoppers team.

A teenager, identified to a Cleveland television station as TJ Lane was captured a short distance away.

Daniel Parmertor, 16, died after the attack. Two of the wounded were said to be critically injured, with another in a serious condition.

Lane, 17, is a student at Lake Academy, an alternative school for pupils aged 12 to 18 who may have been referred because of academic or behavioural problems.

Reuters

FBI: Agents at the home of suspected gunman TJ Lane

The FBI said the suspect was arrested near his car half a mile from Chardon. He was not immediately charged.

The heroism of Hall in chasing the gunman away earned praise from colleagues - who felt it was typical of him.

Don Navatsyk, who also coaches the Hilltoppers, said: "It doesn't surprise me he put his body in front of other people's bodies and saved lives.

"If you talk to 100 kids at school, all 100 would say, 'We love coach Hall.' He's an inspiration."

Another teacher, Joseph Ricci, had just begun his class when he heard the shooting.

He slammed the door to his classroom, yelling: "Lockdown"

He reportedly then opened the door to pull shot student Nick Walczak inside to safety a few minutes later.

Mr Ricci comforted the injured lad, letting him use his mobile phone to call his girlfriend and parents.

Students took to Twitter to thank their teachers for protecting them.

Kyle Spear said: " Coach Hall is a hero, I want to cry thinking about his selflessness."

Julia Manring said: "All I can say is I'm glad I was in Mr. Ricci's class during the shooting he is an amazing human being."

Deanne Nockowski wrote: "Mr Hall and Mr Ricci put themselves on the line when they didn't have to. This world needs more people like them."

A student who witnessed the attack near Cleveland, Ohio, said it appeared the gunman targeted a group of students sitting together and that the one who was killed was gunned down while trying to duck under a cafeteria table.

A lawyer for the suspect's family said his family was mourning "this terrible loss for their community".

FBI officials would not comment on a motive. And Police Chief Tim McKenna said authorities "have a lot of homework to do yet" in their investigation of the shootings, which sent students screaming through the halls at the start of the school day at 1,100-student Chardon High School.

The alert came in just after 7.30am local time yesterday, with the police radio report saying: "We have an active shooter at the high school, repeat, active gunshots at the high school."

Surveillance video apparently shows the gunman sitting down alone at a table in the cafeteria, reaching into a bag and pulling out a .22 caliber handgun.

Nate Mueller, whose ear was grazed by the third shot, saw one friend fall onto their table after being shot, another lying on the floor in a pool of blood and a third was shot as he tried to crawl away.

He said: "We heard a loud pop like a firecracker, almost. I turned around and looked and he was standing above his table pointing his gun and he took one more shot.

"It was terror. Everything had gone tunnel vision. You see glances of your friends laying all over the place. There's blood, there's people screaming, everyone's running in different directions and you're just trying to get out."

Teachers locked down their classrooms as they had been trained to do during drills, and students took cover as they waited for the all-clear in the town of 5,100 people, 30 miles from Cleveland.

Fifteen-year-old Danny Komertz, who witnessed the shooting, said Lane was known as an outcast who had apparently been bullied. But others disputed that.

"Even though he was quiet, he still had friends," said Tyler Lillash, 16. "He was not bullied."

Lane had apparently left a chilling post on his Facebook page on December 30 which included the lines: "He longed for only one thing, the world to bow at his feet... Die, all of you."

Robert Farinacci, a lawyer who is representing Lane and his family, told WKYC-TV the teenager "pretty much sticks to himself but does have some friends and has never been in trouble over anything that we know about".

Long before official word came of the attack, parents learned of the bloodshed from students via text message and mobile phone calls and thronged the streets around the school, anxiously awaiting news about their children.

"I looked up and this kid was pointing a gun about 10ft (3m) away from me to a group of four kids sitting at a table," Danny Komertz said.

He said the gunman fired two shots quickly, and students scrambled for safety. One of them was "trying to get underneath the table, trying to hide, protecting his face".

Dead student Daniel was an aspiring computer repairman who was waiting in the cafeteria for the bus for his daily 15-minute journey to a vocational school.

His teacher at the Auburn Career School had no idea why Daniel, described as "a very good young man, very quiet", had been targeted, said Auburn superintendent Maggie Lynch.

Heather Ziska, 17, said she was in the cafeteria when she saw a boy she recognised as a fellow student come in and start shooting. She said she and several others immediately ran outside, while other friends ran into a middle school and others locked themselves in a teachers' lounge.

"Everybody just started running," said 17-year-old Megan Hennessy, who was in class when she heard loud noises. "Everyone was running and screaming down the hallway."

Mr Farinacci said Lane's family was "devastated" by the shootings and they offered "their most heartfelt and sincere condolences" to Daniel Parmertor's family and the families of the wounded students.

"This is something that could never have been predicted," he told WKYC-TV.

Rebecca Moser, 17, had just settled into her chemistry class when the school went into lockdown. The class of about 25 students ducked behind the lab tables at the back of the classroom, uncertain whether it was a drill.

Text messages started flying inside and outside the school, spreading information about what was happening and what friends and family were hearing outside the building.

Twitter

News from inside: Students tweeted from inside the school

"We all have cellphones, so people were constantly giving people updates - about what was going on, who the victims were, how they were doing," she said.

The school had no metal detectors, but current and past students said it had frequent security drills in case of a shooting.

Anxious parents of high school students were told to go to an elementary school to pick up their children.

Joe Bergant, Chardon school superintendent, said classes had been cancelled and grief counsellors would be available to students and families.

"If you haven't hugged or kissed your kid in the last couple of days, take that time," he said.